Still trying to get rich

Date: Jul 29 1990

Well, the Orange Men (the equivalent of UW's green men) found my stash of cigarette butts in the computer boxes in the storeroom, and those evil thieves are now on their way to being rich. But I got a new get-rich plan. A Scottish friend of mine pointed out that North American women all have fat hips. Then I realized that European women have no hips and their pants are always baggy since they wear North American jeans So I'm gonna open a shop and sell belts. Of course that means I will no longer see Swiss women's pants fall down all the time from lack of a good belt shop in Switzerland.

I saw a weird sight the other day. This hairy hippie guy (I think he was Australian), was sitting on Neiderdorkstrasse, and started putting his tree together, plugged it in, and started playing with his hands and feet this real weird music. This guy was great! One of the branches had a mount for his harmonica and microphone. The main branch of his tree contained what could be used as a violin, a 1 or 2 string guitar and something he tapped like an electric drum. He could rearrange his tree so that he could pluck his tree-guitar with a pick attached to his big toe. The singing was what I'd expect from a confused hairy honky Australian bush-man on acid.

I don't think Swiss people have every seen anyone swim in a (Tilley) hat before. I try to swim out to the rafts in the lake without getting it wet. People laugh at my KIX sandals and wonder whether I can walk on water with em.

I found mandarin oranges. Real ones. Not compressed sawdust sprayed orange. Here they aren't 'Mandarin oranges'. They are 'Mandarines'. I always thought that 'Mandarines' were Chinese guys that still had all their fingers and toes, not having screwed up while in the employ of the Ninja Mafia. Guess not.

'Christine Roth (Sir) asked about prices of CD's. Assuming you guys pay 7% tax, my favorite CD store here sells them for what would be $15.50 CDN. (19 sFr) This is real strange, because normally the price for anything would be minimum 50% more than CDN extending up to outrageous. Except for cheese and chocolate. Most things are outrageously priced.

Valley Girls really exist! I heard one in McDonalds today. Almost made me gag. She used the 'gag' word, but not with a spoon. like really. fer sure. totally awesome.

We advertised on the net for a position here for someone to work with me. We have about 50 applications. Most are ex-army, top-level security, tank-drivers, paraplegics that program with their nose.... And ancient.

For those of you who think the law against washing your car on Sundays is an ancient law here that isn't enforced, a friend of mine knows of someone who went to jail because he refused to pay the fine. The little old bat peeking between the curtains across the street called the fuzz. This is the norm. I also heard of a woman who was told to stop her gardening on Sunday. She asked her Swiss lawyer husband, and he confirmed it was against the law. The Greek babe that was in my German torture class told me that whenever her husband doesn't park his car straight, the neighbor calls the police. Somebody told me they heard of someone getting nailed by the no-showering after 10pm law. Mostly people get busted for making noise. But hard drugs are ok, so long as you are in a public park.

There are no fat Swiss people. This is not surprising. Even though Swiss people will tell you their food is good, you'd have to to crazy to eat more of it than what's necessary to survive. To confirm there are no fat Swiss people around, I posted several signs around Zurich saying 'Fat SWISS people needed for new BATMAN movie - free hamburgers'. No-one showed up.

It's been real hot here lately. We haven't had rain for almost 2 weeks. Lately I've been spending a bit of time at the lake where you pay a 2 sFr fine to get in. It seems to mostly be a topless beach area, so I try to fit in by going topless also. The new generation of bathing suits is amazing.

I still haven't found where they hide the Heidi's.